Officials warned about staffing in vets program

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

Records released to a newspaper indicate that Ohio officials had been warned about openings at a state disabled-veterans program that later lost $525,000 in federal funding because of understaffing.

Ohio’s Disabled Veterans Outreach Program had its annual federal grant reduced in March from about $6.2 million to about $5.7 million because it wasn’t hiring and retaining vocational counselors at levels required by the government, The Columbus Dispatch reported Tuesday.

Officials overseeing the program had been concerned about counselor vacancies going back at least a year, according to documents obtained by the newspaper under public- records requests.

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